As soon as Runir's orders were received by her captains, the fleet started to turn around and accelerate for the jump.
Charging the FTLD took a moment, and they were surrounded, so their first order of business was to break through the encirclement.
-Concentrate fire forward, blast a hole through them.
She ordered.
Seeing as her ships took a hit after a hit from all directions.
The drone ships and droid-operated ships were sent to protect the ones with actual living captains and crews.
The ships and droids they could rebuild, finding competent and experienced captains was not as easy.
The Admiral also realized that if not for the recent shields upgrade, her fleet would be taking a lot of losses right about now.
The enemy was also surprised at the power of the Lantean navy shields, and even more at their coordination.
They predicted that the Imperial fleet would fall into disarray and disperse after being ambushed, but nothing like that happened.
Instead, the imperial fleet was fighting with coordination, punching a hole in their encirclement with pthe recision of a scalpel and the power of a battering ram.
The invading fleet, as well as Drenel's fleet, were paying a high price as their ships were being taken out by concentrated fire, leaving a gap in their trap that they could not fill in time.
As soon as the Imperial fleet blasted a big enough hole in the enemy ranks to open a way of escape, they started jumping out, leaving over forty damaged ships as a rearguard to cover their escape.
Unfortunately, not all of these ships were unmanned; six of them that were damaged beyond any hope of jumping away were crewed, and all of them volunteered to stay and cover for the fleet's retreat.
As much as Runir wanted to find a way to save them, there was nothing she could do but accept their sacrifice.
Despite having a numerical advantage, they were in enemy territory, and thanks to Drenel's betrayal, they sustained a lot of damage, and most of the ships started losing their shields.
If they stayed to try and get their people out, it would only increase their losses.
Right before her destroyer jumped, she saw one of the frigates that were left behind go full burn and ram into an enemy destroyer, cutting it in half.
The explosion of the two ships was the last thing she saw before her ship jumped away.
The whole thing lasted maybe half an hour at most, but the toll it took on both sides was not small.
The moment the allied fleet opened fire on his fleet, Andrew immediately hailed Drenel.
-What the hell are you doing?
He asked furiously.
-Shut up, brat.
You wanted to have an empire, but no one here wants it, so we will tear it down.
The alien said smugly.
Andrew felt his other self surfacing when he heard that.
-As you wish.
He said coldly, shocking the alien, then he signaled to Sarill to end communications.
-We have smaller attacks incoming on our stations at the borders, at least thirty fleets ranging from seventy to over three hundred ships.
Lanarine reported.
-Evacuate the station masters, activate automated defense mode, and scorched earth protocol.
Andrew ordered calmly, but his voice was as cold as a blizzard.
-Contact Arien, tell her to send half of her remaining forces to deal with the nearest enemy fleet.
Redirect the patrol fleets to attack the smaller incoming enemy fleets.
-Tarina, send an official declaration of war to anyone who broke the non-aggression pact.
Vulcan, how many ships do we have in reserve?
-Two hundred vessels and another thirty frigates will join them shortly.
-Good, keep them in the system for now and prepare the surprise I asked you to prepare.
-Are you sure, boss?
If we use that, this universe may be finished.
-I don't care.
Andrew responded coldly.
-Since they want a war, then war they shall have.
Before Runir's fleet even entered the empire's borders again, the whole Empire switched to war settings.
Every station, every ship, every person, was at high alert and devoting their whole production capability to increase their military potential as fast as possible.
-Andrew, we are back in the empire, but I lost over seventy ships, eleven of which were manned.
She reported in a guilt-filled voice.
-It's not your fault; you did great considering the situation you were in.
What's the status of your fleet right now?
Andrew asked after assuring her of the great work she did.
-I have over two hundred ships with minor damage and another sixty or so with moderate damage.
Twenty-nine ships are unable to make another jump, and the tugs are already on their way.
The rest of the fleet is intact.
She reported.
This was more than thirty percent of her fleet that was damaged or destroyed.
-Send the damaged ships for repairs, take the rest, and start dealing with the smaller attacks on our systems.
The fleets that attacked you seem to have sustained a lot of damage and are not pursuing at the moment.
Runir would prefer that they did, as she wanted revenge for her people.
-Dont worry you will get another shot at them, and this time they wont have a traitor ready to stab you in the back.
Andrew said, seeing her angry expression, immediately guessed what she was thinking about.
He was also relieved that she didn't revert to the depression she had when she lost people previously.
Runir accepted her new orders and did as she was told, sending every damaged ship for repairs, while taking the remaining seven hundred plus ships and jumping straight to the nearest system that was under attack.
To her surprise, the moment she arrived the enemy fleet was in disarray and taking heavy casualties from the system defenses and fighters, that were tearing them to bits.
The station had sustained some damage, and almost half of the defense satellites were taken out, not to mention that the fighters were reduced to barely thirty-three operational craft.
But the enemy fleet that in the beginning consisted of over a hundred and fifty ships was reduced to only one third of that, with the rest either utterly destroyed or dead in space.
-Target the destroyers first, dont let any enemy ship escape, fire at will.
She ordered coldly.
The enemy fleet turned away, trying to escape, when her fleet arrived, but in the end, not even one ship managed to escape, when a flood of fire from over seven hundred ships tore into them.
In the end, she left a hundred ships in the system, with orders to board the damaged enemy ships and take them over for the empire, authorizing the use of the Terminator protocol, before jumping away to deal with another enemy fleet.
At the same time, the two groups of Arien forces dealt with two other attacks, taking advantage of the system defenses, to annihilate any enemy in sight.
The three patrol fleets combined into one and tore into another enemy incursion, slaughtering the enemy ships, as they were focused on taking out the system defenses.
Before the enemy could turn and rearrange their formation, it was already too late as they lost over forty percent of their ships, and the rest was not in the best shape to deal with the incoming Imperial fleet.
With the odds against them, the enemy fleet turned to run, which was their last mistake as the three combined patrol fleets had no intention of letting them escape.
Seeing their losses mount, the enemy decided to combine their fleets before they were picked off one after the other.
The result was a combined fleet of over a thousand ships, which managed to take down two systems by destroying the stations and system defenses, paying a steep price for each victory, while gaining nothing in return, since they could not occupy the systems without dealing with the imperial fleet.
Battles and skirmishes lasted for another two days, the attacking forces were being constantly reinforced by new fleets and as time passed more and more neighboring territories joined in on the attack.
During these two days, the Lanrean Empire lost over thirty systems.
However, each time the enemy was forced to pay for their victory and the price was always steep.
The Imperial fleets were also doing everything in their power to stop the attacks, destroying the enemy fleets before they could join the main enemy force, or the ones that decided to attack a system on their own.
By the third day of fighting, the enemy finally figured out that they were unable to take down the empire by attacking every system on their way, as the systems were getting better and better armed and the price of each victory was getting steeper as the time passed.
Finally, they decided to finish this in one battle, putting all their hopes on that one gamble, as they were certain that a prolonged war would end in their inevitable defeat, especially since no more territories decided to join them, seeing how the ones that did were losing their fleets one after the other and not wanting to share their fate as the empire would certainly exact terrifying revenge on the ones that dared to attack it.
All the enemy fleets combined, creating a fleet of over four thousand ships, and jumped straight to the heart of the empire, with the sole intention of killing or capturing the Emperor, hoping this would put an end to the war.
To make sure that the imperial fleets won't interfere, they sent three fleets of five hundred ships to engage them right before the main armada went for the kill.
Arriving in Andrew's system, the whole enemy fleet was stunned, seeing layers upon layers of defense satellites and over two thousand of fighters along with more than five hundred ships, supplemented by defensive substations and the shipyards defenses.
This was enough to shake their confidence, but they knew that there was no turning back now, as this was their best shot at destroying the empire before they were wiped out.
-This is Emperor Andrew Eagle, to the attacking fleet, I'm giving you all one chance to surrender right now, if you decline you will be destroyed.
Andrew addressed the enemy fleet on an open channel.
He didn't expect them to surrender, but he at least gave them a chance to do so.
The enemy fleet didn't take that chance and charged straight at the shipyard, opening fire with everything they had.
But the moment they moved forward, they were targeted by every ship, satellite, and substation, added with the shipyard itself and a swarm of fighters which moved to attack the enemy fleet like angry hornets.
The shipyard was hit multiple times, but its shields, designed to withstand an attack from a dreadnought held firm, despite loosing power way faster than Andrew would have liked.
The imperial forces' response, however, was extremely effective as the energy weapons blasts followed by the rain of kinetic rounds struck the enemy ships, destroying or damaging over a hundred of them in the first volley.
The storm of missiles fired from any defense satellite in range hit next, tearing into the enemy with unrelenting force, taking down another few dozen ships.
What came next was a volley from the shipyard's main and secondary armaments.
The giant rail guns and energy weapons designed to duke it out with battle ships tore through the enemy forces like tissue paper, marking a trail of destruction whenever they hit.
The last blow came in the form of a swarm of fighters raining bombs and rockets down on the enemy while straifing them wirth their cannons.
Within the first ten minutes, the enemy forces melted from over two and a half thousand to barely two thousand.
However, the battle was not exactly one-sided as a quarter of the fighters got taken down, along with over a hundred defense satellites and thirty ships, of which only two were dead in space, and the rest were wrecked, and one of three defensive sub stations suffered heavy damage eliminating it from the fight.
Luckily, all the ships in the system were drone ships, so no one had died.
The enemy armada, on the other han,d was in a panic after losing a fifth of their forces in minutes.
Despite the damage they inflicted on the enemy, it was clear that abandoning this system was beyond their capability so they focussed on taking down the shipyard, planing to escape right after that.
With that in mind they continued to charge forward, willing to crash their ships into the instalation if it was necessary.
They all knew that the empire would retaliate for this attack, and they were also worried about the imperial fleets that could swoop in at any time if their diversion fleets were defeated or ran away.
The battle continued for another hour, with the enemy forces melting fast but also steadily getting closer and closer to the shipyard while trading blows with the system defenses, which were reduced by eighty percent, and the remnants of the small defense fleet, which was decimated at this point.
The fighters were reduced to barely three dozen or so and were out of ammunition.
The enemy forces were also diminishing for reasons other than the Imperial firepower, as some captains deduced that even if they managed to kill the emperor, as catching him was out of the question at this point, the Imperial fleet would come after them and they were not willing to be sacrificed while the ones who started this whole mess were safe far away.
So not wanting to die or be hunted by the imperial navy many captains simply ordered their crews to jump out and leave this sector of the galaxy all together.
With all this, the enemy fleet was finally reduced to barely two hundred twenty ships, which were still fighting and managed to break through the defenses with a straight line to the shipyard ahead of them.
Then, to their surprise, the docks started to open.
Twenty of them opened like they were about to release newly built ships, but the attacking fleet could not see what was inside; some even thought that this was an attempt by the Emperor to escape.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
Andrew finally decided to use his trump card and end this here and now, but before he could give the order to activate the twenty ships in the docks, he received a message.
-Andrew, don't you dare activate these things.
Arien's voice came from he speakers.
As an admiral, she was aware of the trump card that Andrew prepared as a last resort in case they were about to be defeated.
-If I don't, then we will lose.
Andrew said, not backing down.
He knew that the shields of the shipyard were on the verge of collapse after taking fire for so long, despite the recharging system they had.
-Hold on for another three minutes.
Came the response, then the channel went silent.
-There is a fleet incoming.
Lan took a look away from the battle she was focusing on, and switched to the long-range sensors.
-It's Arien and Giarna, they are two minutes out.
Lanarine added when she saw the IFF code attached to the ships.
-Close the docks, don't activate the ships.
We can wait for another two minutes.
Andrew ordered, relieved that help was on its way, and he didn't have to make everyone else's fight much harder to survive.
Two minutes later, Arien and Giarna jumped in together with their remaining forces, right between the enemy fleet and the shipyard.
Before the enemy knew what hit them, the newly arrived fleet opened up on them, tearing their ships to shreds.
Twenty minutes later, there was no enemy ship left intact in the system, and besides those who left earlier, not one ship managed to escape.
-As much as I appreciate the help and am glad to see you ladies, who is protecting the Milky Way part of the empire and the wormhole while you are here rescuing us, not that we needed to be rescued?
Andrew asked.
-It was either that or you making everything way harder for everyone else and besides there are no enemy forces anywhere close to the wormhole, while our neighbours in the Milky Way have no clue what is going on here.
Arien explained.
-I also left five patrol fleets to go around our borders over there as usual, so no one should be able to find out that the main fleet is gone before I return.
Giarna added.
Hearing this, Andrew sighed.
-Alright, I'll let it slide this time, but there better not be next time.
The emperor said seriously, then smiled.
-By the way, thank you for the help.
He added and closed the channel.